Attack
of the Cyber-Controllers: Which Sort of Ethics Do We Need on the Net?

The
paper concerns itself not with the total realm of information ethics but
concentrates on the communicative aspects of the internet. Using an older
term, we could say, it focuses on computer mediated communications (CMC),
now possible over the net and accompanied by the net´s commercialisation.

Of
Bodies and Bytes: Taking a look at the euphorical SciFi-approach of some
cyberspace-philosophers, who acclaim internet-communication as something
immaterial done by New Immaterial Beings, the paper first tries to ground
these new communicative processes. Already the early experiences of the
interactions via Bulletin Board Systems showed, that virtual acts and modes
of behaviour have consequences for the Real-Live of those interacting.
Furthermore the Real-Live conditions of people constitute a specific materialistic
base for their chances to use internet-communication and for their actions
in the seemingly virtual realm.

Rating
the Net: The 'embeddedness' of the net in the Real World and the impact
of virtual communications on Real-Live - on the other hand - are quite
exeedingly thematised by the traditional media and often feared by those
who don´t have much experience as users. In this climate and furthered
by certain pressure-groups regulations start to loom over the net. To avoid
being hit by the blunt instruments of iuridical and institutional regulation
on the nation-state-level, self-regulation by means of rating and filtering
is largely promoted lately by the industry and politicians alike. That
approach and it´s software-instruments more or less tend to suspend
ethics and ethical discourses in favour of pragmatical solutions - missing
out, that rating and filtering includes normative decisions - or at least
normative selectivity - and therefore moral implications. The need to secure
the effectiveness of self-rating and to control unrated content furthermore
leads to the creation of a system of international institutionalized cooperation,
that threatens to primarily strengthen the most restrictive and reactionary
groups among users and lay content-governance into their hands.

Approaching
Ethics: The need for ethical reflections and ethical discourses therefore
cannot be suspended by the pragmatical politics of rating and filtering.
Understandable demands for means of filtering on behalf of the protection
of children and young people therefore have to be embedded in these discourses.
The same applies to demands of political regulation on behalf of guarding
democratic states against anti-democratic agitations (a topic strangely
remote to most current rating and filtering solutions). To be able to move
towards ethical concepts for the net, the actual uses and user-realms of
the net have to be considered. In contrast to the eulogies of the net having
created something like Global Communications Unhindered, cyberspace knows
it´s own borders and specific routes of communication-streams - which
form a sort of new virtual territories, transnational but not global. Regarding
that reality of net-communications, it may be possible to view internet-ethics
as a bundle of various reflective - and scientifically substantiated -
morals, that are primarily valid for those subscribing to them on behalf
of their Real-World cultural settings - but that may perhaps begin to approach
each other thanks to their simultaneous presence in the potential realm
of transnational accessability.

Information
ethics is confronted with the challenge of thinking about the conditions
of possibility of living projected by the digital casting of being. As
the scholastic said: modus operandi sequitur modum essendi. Action
follows being. We live in the information age. But what is information?
It is one of the most controversial concepts of the 20th century. This
paper summarizes this controversy between culturalists and naturalists.
One solution to this dilemma are the paths of thinking opened up by the
physicist Carl-Friedrich von Weizsäcker who connects the concept of
information with such traditional concepts as idea,eidos
and morphé as coined by Plato and Aristotle. Another path
is the one suggested by the Oxford philosopher Luciano Floridi in his paper:
"Information Ethics:
On the philosophical Foundations of Computer Ethics". I will argue
that Floridi's ontology remains ontic, i.e. that it does not open the question
of being underlying today's digital casting. In other words, it does not
state the question of this casting as a casting of being. What follows
from this? I will argue that in order to demythologize today's digital
casting it is necessary to find a path for thinking and action that may
make us aware of the relativity of today's digital ontology. Heidegger's
question of being needs to be retrieved. Today's digital ethos seems
to be at the opposite of existential phenomenology.

Online
journalism, does it raise new moral problems? Or is it just a matter of
old wine in new bottles? And how does journalism react on the new issues,
if any, of online journalism? Is it meaningful and desirable to develop
self regulation instruments, e.g. ethical guidelines, for this new kind
of journalism on the Internet?

In
the online version of the newspapers, only to a certain degree new dilemmas
come up for discussion, since the reputation of credibility and carefulness
of the papers, in spite of all criticism, does apply to the online version
as well. Besides, there is the so called dotcom journalism, the e-zines,
the online news sites without any relationship with printed newspapers.
That might be the reason why these sites don't have any commitment to the
moral standards, mainly created in the journalistic culture of the newspapers.

On
the Internet, the flow of information is unstoppable, without regard to
the quality of truthfulness. Speed is allied to a lack of carefulness.
The news is being published immediately, added and corrected afterwards.
The one who has important news first on his site, is sure of the attention
of all. Speed and scoops are getting more and more important in the Internet
context, especially because of commercial interests. News sites don't have
any paid subscription, but are dependent on earnings from ads. This could
easily be at the expense of carefulness and credibility. The
outstanding moral issue in online journalism is the conflict of interests,
the removal of the separation between editorial and commercial aspects. How
far is a journalist allowed to go in cyberspace? Is he permitted to hang
around unobserved in chat rooms? That means the online variant of undercover
journalism.What
about the risk of professional standards getting into hot water, when people
outside professional journalism are reporting important events in news
groups?

The
interactivity of online journalism offers opportunities to a more open
and direct communication between journalists and their public. Through
e-mail, the public can easier gain access to the editorial staff members,
so that errors and omissions can be earlier and easier corrected and added
and that reports can be commented by readers. The public can play the role
of watchdog and make an appeal to the social responsibility of the medium.
On the other hand, interactivity offers journalists an excellent opportunity
to give explanation and to be accountable.

Computer
Science and Information Technology are rapidly
changing fields with a wide range of subjects that needs to
be studied. A typical curriculum at any level struggles
to
fit in the entire spectrum of topics either
as core or elective subjects. A full course on "Ethics
(Values/Morals)" is difficult to fit into a curriculum. Efforts are
underway in the country to introduce
one such course in the Engineering
curriculum by order. Such a course if and when introduced
is most likely to be very early (I semester) where the notions discussed
would be very generic.

Earlier,
the presumption has been that the "Ethics relatedtopics" are
fully taught at the pre-university level. Now, a compulsory
course at the University level provides some reinforcement
but does not ensure the application to
the profession.

Thus,
the software engineers need to be constantly made awareof the vital
aspects such as ethics in a informal way right through the
engineering education at any level. The author reaches this
conclusion due to two important observations :a)
Ethics cannot be practised simply by reading the textbooksb)
Good behaviour/manners does not imply good
ethical standards

The
basis for the work of the author is
the Software Engineer's Code of ethics jointly framed by the IEEE
Computer Society and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM).

The
aspects enshrined in this document demand that a variety of oppurtunities
that need to be provided to the students to strengthen*
moral responsibility*
capacity of discipline*
a keen sense of goals, values and processes of a free society*
personal quality *
participation in teams*
communicating skills

Approaches
such as the Personal and Team Software Processes are quite
rigorous. Thus, Software Engineering ethics is a continuous
process (not a one off course) that forms the undercurrent
in a Computer Science/Information Technology curriculum.

This
paper discusses one such process.

1.
Introduction

Computers
are influencing every facet of human endeavour.They
have become an indispensible tool and are playing
a pivotal role in improving the quality
of life of an individual. Software engineers
are responsible for creating computer based applications that effect
the society at large. The applications range from office productivity
packages to interconnected appliances at home. It is the software
that is vital in mission critical endeavours such
as nuclear reactors, satellite launch and monitoring.

Software
engineers contribute to the enormous corpus
of computer programs developed across the globe by
involving themselves in teaching, analysis, specification,
design, development, certification, maintenance
and testing of software systems. Hence software
engineers have significant opportunities to do good or cause
harm, to enable others to do good or cause harm, or to influence
others to do good or cause harm.

To
ensure, as much as possible, that their efforts will be used
for good, software engineers are expected to adhere to a Code of
Ethics and Professional practice.

The
Code of Ethics developed jointly by the IEEE and ACM has eight
principles related to the behavior of and decisions
made by professional software
engineers, including practitioners, educators,
managers, supervisors and policy makers, as well as trainees
and students of the profession.

The
individual parts of the Code are never to be used
in isolation to justify errors of omission or commission. Each
principle has a set of clauses that
are by no means exhaustive. The code is not an algorithm
and it requires the application of human acumen and keen sense of
judgement. The code of ethics is not merely a basis for judgement.
It is a way of life for every software engineering professional
and teams of such professionals.

1.1.
Principles of the Code of Ethics

Principle
1 PUBLIC Software
engineers shall act consistently with the public interest.

Principle
2 CLIENT AND EMPLOYER Software
engineers shall act in a manner that is in the best interests of
their client and employer and that is consistent with the public
interest.

Principle
5 MANAGEMENT Software
engineering managers and leaders shall subscribe to and promote an
ethical approach to the management of software development and maintenance
.

Principle
6 PROFESSION Software
engineers shall advance the integrity and reputation of the
profession consistent with the public interest.

Principle
7 COLLEAGUES Software
engineers shall be fair to and supportive of their colleagues.

Principle
8 SELF Software
engineers shall participate in lifelong learning regarding
the practice of their profession and promote an ethical
approach to the practice of the profession.

Firmly
entrenched in the clauses corresponding to
each principle are the notions of responsibility, co-operation,
pronounced ability to make correct judgements,
clear and precise communication capability, great degree
of personal quality, uprightness and self-restraint. All these facets
of the software engineer have to come into focus
under high pressure situations that are the norm
in teh modern day software development environments.

The
dynamic and demanding context of software engineering
does lead to piquant situations and ethical tensions inspite of this
code of ethics. In all such situations the judgement must be
in favour of enhancing the 'public interest' or
minimal damage to the society effected. Moreover, the
code has to be adaptable to cater to new situations and challenges faced
by the profession of software engineering.

Hence,
the author opines that Ethics and Morals cannot be a single
course at the beginning of the Undergraduate
or Postgraduate programme. The imparting of the Code of Ethics
must be a continuing process that forms the undercurrent of
every software engineering programme. it is vital but is an
undercurrent in the programme. The students
tend to be enamoured by exciting course titles and contents
that can be readily related to the current trends. The
onus is thus on the teachers of Software Engineering
programmes to impress the students on the vitality of the code
of ethics and moral practices. This paper sketches a
process to achieve this desirable goal.

2.
The perceived industry environment

A
strong opinion amongst students and society
is that business is powered by inherently non-moral motivation.
This is proving to be a major hurdle in
inculcating ethical approaches in the students of software engineering.

It
is true that most business decisions are driven by a clear profit
motive. The relationship between self-interest,
ethical considerations and the profit motive
is grossly misunderstood by the students.

2.1
Self-Interest

Self-interest
is the 'concern for one's own personal good' and is often
used as a synonym for 'welfare', 'well-being', 'flourishing', 'utility'
and 'advantage'. This notion should not be contrived to make
people necessarily do only what is most advantageous to them. Students
must learn to foster the development
of some dispositions to make sacrifices for
certain others. Clear economic rewards appeal to the
self-interest and can elicit hard work, innovation amd
personal risk. This is not 'selfishness' wherein one is concerned only
about self even at the cost of serious
consequences to others.

Self-interest
is perforce not immoral. An appreciation of this
helps students create a passion for the work assigned. If it
is complemented by right measure of compassion by the superiors one
gets committed to the organisation.Self-interest
is bound by the rules and regulations of the business context.
Prohibitions on lying, stealing, injuring, promise-breaking are important
in any business context.

The
author deems it important to impress the students that businesses
admit that there are limits to the amount of self-sacrifice that can be
demanded.

2.2
Business Ethics

A
businessmanis often projected as one
who has no alternative, largely due to the
intense competition, to do anything other than
buy at the cheapest and sell at the dearest price
he can. This is not an irrational projection and appeals
to the common sense. Well, the businessman
operates within the framework of the law. As long as
this framework is kept intact the businessman can focus only
on maximising the profits without being constrained by moral or social
considerations or any other sense of responsibility. This is
a false notion of 'economic determinism'. The iron laws
governing the businessess are themselves not made of
iron and leave a wide range of alternative courses of action at every
step of the business.

Thus,
the standards enforced by the law need
to be supplemented by the moral standards of the businessmen.
Yes, it cannot be denied that businessmen are shy of
moral arguments. This is partly because
morals are unduly simplistic and appear
to be remote from the pragmatics of business decision
making process. Moreover, once gien a foothold
the moral and ethical considerations can end up
being very demanding and perceptibly counterproductive to the business.

Thus
businessmen often take recourse to
'discretionary powers' to cater to the moral
and ethical aspects of 'decision-making'. Typically,
the higher the rank in an organisation the
wider is the range of the 'discretionary powers'. The
process of exercising these powers is often a keen tussle between
unenlightened self-interest stemming from scepticism to do anything otherwise
and a sense of furthering the interst of atleast a majority of the
business partners.

The
usage of 'discretinary powers' happens amidst
the conflicting obligations to six sorts of 'stakeholders'
or business partners. The six sorts of 'stakeholders' are-
financiers-
employees-
suppliers-
customers-
the environment-
the society as a whole including the industry or trade and fairplay to
the competitors

It
is interesting to observe that this approach can easily be mapped onto
to an individual and the team. The complexity of decision making
is understandably not to a high degree.

How
much of the 'business ethics' can be taught formally to a student
is a moot point. Can an academic
insititution consider imparting 'business ethics' as a dignified
activity is another pertinent issue. Even if the academic isntitutions
attempt to teach 'business ethics' teh methodology is often far
flung from the reality in a business house. No academic institution
can compile a collection, say 1000,
solved problems of life.

An
exposure to 'business ethics' is thus not merely a drill in
developing cognitive skills for analysing design
and decision alternatives. However, these are the skills that are taught,
tested and graded in a typical academic environment.It can neither
be a set of discouses or moral sermons forming a course of
certain duration. The author thus suggests a process
that has several aspects that cannot be tested and graded
to impress the software engineers on the vitality of ethics.
The first step is to dispel the myths about
the industry environment.

The
process brings into focus the humanity perspectives of the
businesses, leadership and character perspectives
of individuals running these businesses. The process is put
on rails by close mentoring that inculcates passion, compassion, and commitment
for ethics and moral aspects.

3.
The Process

As
mentioned in the previous section, the
process of impressing the students about the vitality
of ethics has several aspects that are not tested and graded.
This process centers around three major issues :1.
the development of a vision for one's life 2.
the development of one's character, dealing with concerns of direction
and quality of life. 3.
the development of competence that deals with concerns of how
well one is able to do something.

Character,
good or bad, is observable. Any effort at
impacting the character of the student has to address the following
major questions.1.
what is good character; 2.
what causes or prevents it; 3.
how can it be measured so that efforts at improvement can have corrective
feedback;and 4.
how can it best be developed?

Traditionally
has good character was to inculcate traits or values appropriate
for the industrial age such as obedience to authority, work ethic,
working in group under supervision, etc. However, the information
age demands traits such as truthfulness, honesty, integrity,
individual responsibility, humility, wisdom, justice, steadfastness,
dependability, etc.

Character
development is influenced by1.
heredity 2.
early childhood experience 3.
modeling by important adults and older youth 4.
peer influence 5.
the general physical and social environment 6.
the communications media 7.
what is taught in the schools and other institutions 8.
specific situations and roles that elicit corresponding
behavior.

The
list is from the 'least tractable aspects' to the 'most tractable
aspects'. The author deems it wise to involve the parents in certain
cases.

The
appropriate metrics for 'character' are proving to be
elusive. The author believes that wihtout
appropriate metrics, the quality of the process being suggested
has no real significance. At the moment, some of the metrics
being used are :1.
Commitment Metrics+
Preparedness for listening to the lecture by finding out
answers to the questions given in the previous lecture+
Ability to find new and relevant information

2.
Character Metrics+
Sharing the information found with the fellow students(who are also competitors
for grades)+
Independent work during tests and assignmentsThe
process is still evolving. These aspects
are not included in the final grading.

We
need to define character development in terms of the three components
of mind: (cognition, affect, conation) and the component
of behavior. This behavior has two
aspects: personal issues such as being courageous and self-disciplined
and social issues such as being compassionate, courteous, and trustworthy.

We
cannot teach our students all the specific knowledge,
values, or behaviors that will lead to success in all aspects of
their lives. We must therefore acknowledge that
some values are relative and teach students to develop their
own views accordingly. At the same time, we must acknowledge that there
are some absolutes with respect to
morality and character. Any framework for impacting moral
and character development is arbitrary unless
it is based on some philosophical foundation.
In a secular country like India, itis
not easy to enforce a set of ethics based on religion. Thus,the ethics
under scrutiny are largely 'work ethics' and not'personal
ehtics'.

The
framework impacting the ethics warrants 1.
the exercising of authority in a firm, sensitive,
and imaginative manner2.
dedicated faculty 3.
structuring so that pupils are surrounded by a variety of opportunities
for them to practice helping (prosocial) conduct; 4.
a management that provides pupils--both individually and collectively--with
many forms of recognition for good conduct; 5.
orientation towards maintaining systems of
symbols, slogans, ceremonies, and songs that
heighten pupils' collective identities; 6.
clear, widely disseminated discipline codes
that ar vigorously enforced and backed up with vital consequences; 7.
committment to academic instruction and
appropriate academic rigor; 8.
sensitivity to the need to develop
collective pupil loyalties to particular classes, clubs, athletic
groups, and other subentities 9.
sympathetic view to the values of the external
adult society, and perceive it as largely
supportive and concerned with the problems of the students 10.openness
to enlisting the help, counsel, and support of parents
and other external adults, but willing to propose important constructive
changes in the face of (sometimes) ill-informed parent resistance In
addition, the author exposes the students to
various facets of 'Emotional Intelligence' very subtly
during the regular lecture sessions.

4.
Conclusion

The
results are encouraging and effort is on to extend the observations
to beyond the precincts of the classroom.
Spotting the students of the course or under my advice in the library,
canteen, computer center and at random places and making
observations is proving to be effective.
Formal sessions on 'Emotional Intelligence' are being contemplated
to train the students to tide over the ethical
dilemmas mentioned in Section 2.

It
is taking about 14 months to see any significant results even when the
group has only 15 students at the Masters degree level. The author has
begun work on a group of 30 students at the Under-Graduate level. The author
expects thatit
would take about 24 months in the normal course to see any significant
results.

To
catalyse this process courses in Personal Quality and Ability enhancement
such as the Personal Software Process are on the anvil.

During
the debates about the US presidential election 2000 I saw a discussion
on CNN, in which the spectators of this program had the opportunity to
ask questions to some experts. One of those questions was about the possibility
of voting via the Internet. Unfortunately, I was too late so I didn't hear
the answer to this interesting question. Because of this I asked myself,
which pro- and counterarguments for i-voting exist. At first glance, there
are much more arguments pro i-voting than against, but looking farther,
the problem runs deeper, since i-voting could affect some of our civil
rights.

Therefore,
I would like to show that there's a strong relationship between IT security,
civil rights, and Open Source. My hypothesis is that without using Open
Source software in state institutions it wouldn't be possible to produce
the highest level of IT security and therefore it wouldn't be possible
to fulfill the idea of civil rights in the area of state institutions.
I would like to show this with the example of software for i-voting: software
that should make it possible to vote via the Internet. I will use this
example, since the right to vote is a kind of paradigm of civil rights
and this is true for all democratic nations states and institutions.

One
of the most important principles of western style democracy is the principle
of "one man, one vote". Citizens of democratic states have the civil right
to vote as a key part of their participation in policy making. It is an
important task for state institutions to secure this right. Before I will
discuss the relationship between IT security, civil rights, and Open Source,
I would like to take a short look at the process and conditions of voting
in the "traditional" way. It is a brief description of the voting procedure
in Germany. To me, it seems to be a remarkable argument that some of the
troubles of the presidential elections in the USA arise from the fact that
no common procedure of voting exists across the whole United States. From
the point of view of a German citizen or even from the position of a citizen
of the EU this is hard to understand, since in Germany and in the EU nobody
sees ones civil rights endangered by using a uniform voting procedure:

One
who wants to vote has to identify oneself. This is necessary to secure
that everybody is able to vote only once a time during an election.

The
act of voting is done secretly; apart from the prior identification the
procedure of voting have to be anonymous to secure that there's no opportunity
to do reprisals against voters as reaction to their choices.

And
at least there're several controls to secure that there won't be any other
opportunities to falsify the votes: one has to vote in a polling booth,
the ballot-paper has to be done into an envelope, after this the envelope
has to be done into a closed ballot-box. After the election is closed,
the votes are counted; this counting is controlled several times.

In
addition, every citizen has the right to take a look at all documents necessary
for the election; in principle, every step of the election procedure is
open to public control. So we can see that an elaborated system of crosschecks
exists to prevent the opportunity of falsifying an election. Now, in several
countries, for example in Germany (see www.internetwahlen.de),
projects are started to design and build the technology for i-voting via
the Internet. In principle, it shouldn't be a problem to design the technology
for the procedure of voting via the net; however we have to face the fact
that such a technology may be too expensive for a nation wide application.
But it is a conditio sine qua non that any i-voting technology has to maintain
that the right to vote is general, equal, and secret for all voters. This
means that all described controls have to take place in the process of
i-voting, too. Therefore I claim with two major arguments that the only
possibility to secure this demand this is to use Open Source software for
i-voting.

Support
of civil rights: All described procedures are done or maintained by software
if we will use i-voting. To control, whether everything is done right is
only possible if the source code of the used software is open to everyone,
which means open to public control. Without knowing the source code it
is impossible to realize one's right to control actions of state institutions.
It is obvious that without knowing the source code, for instance, it is
impossible to control, whether there're no multiple votes of one person.
Protocols of the voting are not enough, since nobody could control, whether
there're produced right or wrong. As well, it is impossible to secure the
demand that the voting procedure has to be secret and anonymous. We know
from the history of the last months and years that several companies in
the IT business tried to collect personal data of users of their products
without any agreement or knowledge of those users. In May, June, and October
2000 the US Senate performed some hearings about the issues of "Internet
Privacy", "Online Profiling and Privacy", and "Consumer Internet Privacy"
(the testimonies of the witnesses can be seen at the www.senate.gov/~commerce/issues/consumer.htm#Hearings;
besides, in Germany, it is forbidden by law to collect data in such a way
as, for instance, Simson Garfinkel described it in his testimony before
the US Senate and in his book "Database Nation" (2000)). Obviously, the
actions of state institutions and IT business companies are not the same.
But without the option to control even state institutions the possibility
and opportunity to falsify an election is given.

Support
of IT security: The example of the hack of Microsoft's company network
shows us that 100% security is not in reach. Each system of rules and each
system of technological artifacts can be misused or it can work in a wrong
and faulty way. Therefore, rules can be revised and technology can be improved.
One way to enhance technology is to use it and to wait until an error occurs.
But this is too dangerous in mission-critical applications; surely, i-voting
is such an application. So, it would be much better to test software in
simulations and to check it by a large number of users and experts. The
Open Source community just does this. The large number of users seems to
be able to guarantee that errors are found very quickly; security problems
are detected rapidly as well. So from the point of view of IT security
the best way to secure i-voting from errors or falsifying is to use Open
Source software. Since it is free, every group, party, or NGO could use
such software for own voting procedures: this wouldn't be as mission-critical
as, say, an election of the United States president or something like that
and would be a good field for testing such software.

Lawrence
Lessig (1999) stated that "Code is law". In democratic nation states, law
is for the people and code that is law should be for the people, too. Only
Open Source software could fulfill the promise of democracy through technology,
but using even the best designed and evaluated software we shouldn't forget
that technology cannot solve all or even a remarkable number of our social
problems. For instance, outside the ballot-booth there's no certainty who
really votes and there are too many opportunities to falsify the election.
Because of this, in Germany constitutional doubts are expressed against
i-voting and even against postal voting. So we have to think twice, whether
it is reasonable to change the approved procedure of voting. With good
arguments it could be denied that i-voting is a way to increase the polls.
The small number of voters, for instance, in the presidential elections
in the USA is surely not only a problem of voting procedures but among
other things a problem of a diminishing identification of citizens with
democracy. This is a problem in most of the democratic states all over
the world. It's a social and political problem, not a technological one.
I-voting seems to be the wrong tool and the wrong answer to this problem.